


Lost at Sea

by Vermin_Disciple



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Community: martianholiday, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vermin_Disciple/pseuds/Vermin_Disciple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris has a terrible secret, but revealing it may help solve a most despicable murder. Whatever will he do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost at Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [MartianHoliday](http://community.livejournal.com/martianholiday) 2010, for margo_kim, who requested: _Chris and Annie work together on a case and bond over something stupid. Gen, preferably, on the lighthearted end of the mood spectrum._

Chris couldn’t stop the blush reddening his cheeks, but he continued reading, counting under his breath. _Giulietta’s_ (1) _skin_ (2) _blazed_ (3) _at_ (4) _the_ (5) _exquisite_ (6) _fire_ (7) _of_ (8) _his_ (9) _rough_ (10), _virile_ (11) _touch_ (12).

“Touch,” he said, aloud. “234-3-12 is touch.”

Annie nodded and scribbled it down on the yellow notebook in front of her on the coffee table. The rest of the table was buried beneath a pile of books all in flowery pastels, with titles like _The Pirate’s Lady_ and _The Captain’s Daughter_ and _Hearts Adrift_.

“You can set that one aside,” she said. “That’s the last of the ones marked MM. The next is PPB.”

Chris immediately dropped _Maiden at the Mast_ , letting it land with an accusatory thud on Mildred Porlock’s peach-colored carpet. The former Mildred Porlock. They’d found her this morning, when the neighbor called about the smell. Chris crinkled his nose at the memory. She wore the same blue dressing gown that his mum did and he was never, ever going to get a cat, and it wasn’t right when the stiffs looked like someone’s Nan, was it?

“… _and you haven’t even begun to touch_ ,” Annie was saying. She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t think there’s anything here. He’s just _gloating_. He must have had ages here if he went to this much trouble. He wants us to know he had all the time in the world.”

She looked very unhappy, and possibly like she was going to start talking psychology again, like she and Sam had done earlier, to the Guv’s annoyance. He thought maybe he was supposed to pat her on the back, or something, and then he thought that maybe he wasn’t supposed to touch her at all because she was maybe-sort-of the Boss’ girl, and then he remembered that the Boss had told him he was supposed to think of her as a fellow police officer and not as a girl, and then he decided that since she didn’t look like she was going to cry, he probably didn’t need to worry about comforting her anyway. So instead he said, “What do you reckon PPB is?”

“Pirate something?” suggested Annie. She picked up several books in succession, dropping them each in turn, muttering, “ _Pirate’s Prisoner_? No. _Pirate’s Mistress_? No…” She shot him a look. “See if you can find SH. I think that’s the one after it.”

 _Stormy Hearts_ , as it turned out, was sitting right at the top of the pile. A ginger bird – with tits that looked like they might float out of her corset like fleshy colored balloons – pouted her lips at him from the cover.

Chris glanced at the note the murderer had left for them. A cipher, the Boss had called it. A bloody distraction, the Guv had said. While they were arguing over whether or not it was worth solving, Annie had examined the old widow’s bookshelf and worked out the key. As a reward for her cleverness, she’d got stuck here trying to decipher the sodding thing while the Guv and the Boss went to shake down a likely snout and Ray interviewed the neighbors. He, meanwhile, had accidentally let the cat out of the house, which could happen to anyone, and as a reward for his divishness he’d been set to poring over bloody _Romance novels_. And don’t think Ray hadn’t had a word or two to say about _that_.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

The murderer, who wasn’t a nice bloke anyway if he was killing old ladies, also had a knack for picking his words from amidst the naughty bits. Chris couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that Annie was, in spite of what Sam had said, a _girl_ , because although he wouldn’t exactly be happy doing this to Ray’s commentary, at least _maybe_ he wouldn’t be blushing quite so often.

Case in point: … _she pressed her full_ (SH-302-2-4) _lips to his tumescent_ … He shut the book and hurriedly added the word to his own notebook.

And _that_ wasn’t the worst of it, either.

The worst of it was that he already knew all about what was going on between the red-headed Lady Helena and her tumescent friend, Captain Pericolo. Because he’d read it. Cover to cover. Three weeks ago.

He practically had the whole tumescent passage memorized.

He still hadn’t looked up the word _tumescent_ , though. He wasn’t _that_ far gone. Violet St. Simon was very fond of the word, so he’d mostly worked it out for himself.

It was all DI Sam Tyler’s fault, anyway. Not that he thought that the Boss, whatever Ray and the Guv said about him, would be caught dead reading something with a cover that pink. But when he’d asked Sam for advice about Sarah – he’d tried some of Ray’s tactics on Florence and _that_ hadn’t gone over well – Sam had told him that he could try finding out what sort of things she was interested in. _See if you can find common ground_ , he’d said, and Chris had dutifully written that in his notebook.

That was why, when she’d gone to the toilet and he was left sitting awkwardly in her sitting room, he’d picked up the book she’d left lying on the sofa. And then he’d made the mistake of opening it to her bookmark.

He hadn’t been able to look her in the eye all night, not when his mind filled up with all _that_ every time he did.

And he’d written Violet St. Simon’s name in his notebook too, and learned to tell the shopkeeper he was buying them for his girlfriend.

He’d always liked pirates, you see. And these were the best kind of pirates too, the ones that were honorable even though they were criminals, the kind who saved beautiful damsels and got into fights with evil pirates who didn’t care about being honorable, and generally had a lot of grand adventures.

The books had nearly as much violence as they did romance. There were sword fights, even. And other swords, yeah, she was quite keen on _swords_ , but she didn’t skimp on the bosoms, brassieres or special _flowers_ either, so he just tried not to think too much about any swords that weren’t made of metal.

The love stories weren’t bad, either. In fact they were rather nice. He wouldn’t have admitted that to Ray for a whole chest of gold bullion, but it was true. He liked them.

“I can’t find anything that matches!” said Annie. She rose from her seat and began combing the near-empty shelves. “It definitely doesn’t start with ‘Pirate.’ And he’s used it for 23 words!”

“Think he’s hidden it?” suggested Chris. “That’s what I’d do, if I was writing something important. To make it harder to work out, like.”

“Could be,” said Annie miserably, still searching. Chris chewed the end of his pencil, thinking. PPB. Not _Pirate_ \--. _Passion_ \--?

Then it hit him with the force of a cannon ball. _Passion on the Port Bow_. He should have guessed it right off. It was sitting in his coat pocket. His coat, which was draped over an armchair on the other side of the room. Annie was standing right next to it. There was no way he was going to manage to get to it without her noticing where it had come from.

He bit down harder on the pencil. There was nothing for it, really.

“Er,” he said, and coughed. “Uh, Annie.”

“Yes,” she said, distractedly.

“Checkmycoatpocket,” he said. And then, at her quizzical expression, “Check my coat pocket. Go on, it’s not a wind-up.”

She found the book, and raised her eyebrow at him.

“God, don’t tell anyone,” he said. “Please, Annie. I’ll never live it down.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. On my honor,” she said, and smiled. “This is it, Chris! This has to be the one!” She rejoined him on the sofa. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he mumbled. Really, never again.

She turned it over in her hands. “I haven’t read this one,” she said mildly.

“You read them?” he asked, in some surprise. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised, but, girl or not, Annie just didn’t seem the type. But neither did he, or so he hoped.

“I shouldn’t,” she said, frowning slightly. “I shouldn’t like them at all, they’re all so – absurd, really. And you know, the heroines are always getting tied up and needing to be rescued and they never _do_ anything but stand around moping and pouting and waiting for someone to take them away from their dreary lives instead of trying to _be_ less dreary themselves.” She smiled down fondly at the little paperback, and Chris tried to work out what was so bad about being rescued. “I dunno. I suppose I just like the sword fights. And all that sex, obviously.”

Chris didn’t quite know what to say to that. But he didn’t feel hot with embarrassment anymore, so maybe it was going to be okay after all. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Hang on, what about Lucretia? The blacksmith’s daughter? She challenged Lord Blackwell to a dual and saved Frederick’s life. She wasn’t dreary.”

“No, I quite liked her. That bit with the rope was rather brilliant, wasn’t it?” said Annie. “Alright, I’ll concede you Lucretia, but what about Sophia? She had the personality of a dishrag.”

“I don’t remember a Sophia.”

“Well, she isn’t worth remembering, so I wouldn’t bother.” They grinned at each other for a moment, and then Annie coughed, and opened the book. “Now, what was that page number again?”

“Page 214, first paragraph, ninth word.”

Annie’s eyes widened slightly as she read.

“ _Upon_ ,” she said, speaking aloud as she scribbled it down. Then, “Do you mind if I borrow this, when you’re done?”

There were, he decided, worse ways to spend an afternoon. And there were definitely less interesting types of police work.


End file.
